In this vocabulary lesson for speaking English I’ll give you a tour of my home! You’ll learn new vocabulary, practice speaking English and walk through my home with me.
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Video Transcript:
Welcome to my house. Come on in for a tour and let’s learn some English.
The first room is the entryway. There are lots of different words we could use for this. We could use vestibule, foyer, or if you’re really fancy, you could say foyer. David, what do you usually call this room?
Yeah, I would say entryway.
Entryway. We’ll stick with it. And as you can see, we have tons of hooks and we do have kids. So, we have lots of small and brightly colored things. Look at this. I have to show this off because I’m so proud of it. I tie-dyed this myself last summer for my son, Sawyer. Isn’t that so cute? I got to say it took approximately 1 hour to put in all those rubber bands, but I would say it’s worth it. What would you say? So, this isn’t actually supposed to be me bragging about tie-dye. This is supposed to be my home tour.
Okay, this is my garage. And there is no way you’re going to get me to open this door. It is such a mess. It’s like a tornado went through.
Like a tornado went through means very, very messy. A tornado, also called twister, cyclone, or whirlwind, is an extremely powerful column of air on the earth’s surface. And it can cause all sorts of damage. So, you can imagine that if I’m saying my garage looks like a tornado went through it, it’s a big mess.
Okay, up the steps. Now, the thing about my house is it’s a split level. So that means that the house every floor is like that. That got really close. Every floor is like this. So we don’t have any stretches of the house where front to back it’s all on one level. So as you saw, we had to come up some steps and that brings us into our kitchen. Now when we bought this room, when we bought this house, this room was not a kitchen. This room had a half bath, which is what you call a bathroom, that’s just got a toilet and a sink. And it was their dining room and their living room. And we thought, “No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want a kitchen on the second floor. That’s just odd.” So, we renovated. We gutted the room. And look at this island. I had a friend once call it the largest island in Philadelphia. So, this is the kitchen. Now, let’s just, let’s do a little tour of what we’ve got here. This is one of the ideas that I thought was absolutely genius, which is put a bunch of our mini appliances down here. You can see our love for candle lighting there. So, I’ve got my toaster. I’ve got my kettle, microwave, and my Vitamix. And look at this. I just got this for Mother’s Day from my sons. A metal Vitamix pitcher or whatever you would call this, blender top. I love it.
But anyway, it’s so nice having that away. I like to be very tidy. I like things to have their place. So, to not have to have stuff out on the counter makes me very happy.
This is a watercolor painting done by my sister-in-law. Isn’t it gorgeous? I like how the wood here, the warm wood color matches the wood of the floor. This kind of um, wood tile, this kind of arrangement of the tile is called herringbone. And I grew up in a house in Florida and it had wood herringbone. So when I walked in here and I saw this, I was like, I think I’m home.
Okay, what else do you want to see? Oh, let’s talk about the counter. This is soapstone, um, which is just cut from the earth into a slab and then put into our kitchen. Now, we love soap stone, but it is a soft stone, which means it can get busted easily. For example, you can see there’s a teeny tiny little scratch there. There’s a a little dent. And over here, we’ve got like a pretty big divot. I probably dropped a pot while I was doing dishes. And you can see all the It’s right here. David.
Can’t find you.
Right here. Do you see the divot?
Yep.
All the little scratches. Now over here, right on the edge. Bam. Doing something. Dropped it. Got a big chink in the edge here. But you know what? You can put oil on it and it turns into a nice black. You can get the scratches right out with that oil.
So, we have an eat-in kitchen, which means we have a table in our kitchen. We don’t have a dining room. We decided that we were going to be a house without a dining room because we thought this is big enough. This is good enough for our family of four. And when we have guests over, we can turn the table this way and we can add a leaf.
A leaf is a section of a table that you can add to make it longer. Like leaf on a tree. Same spelling, same pronunciation, but different meanings.
And we have another table we can put at the end. And then we can make it really long. Now, our other table had two leaves. This table smaller, only has one leaf, but it still works. It works great for us.
Just like a leaf on a tree, the plural of leaf for a table is leaves.
I’m Rachel and I’ve been teaching the American accent for over 20 years. Please scan this QR code or go to rachelsenglish.com/free to get my free course, The Top Three Ways to Master the American Accent. It will blow your mind and totally change the way you think about learning this language. This kind of lamp is called a pendant lamp when it hangs. And you can see we have one there. David picked it out and three there. David picked them out. David is sort of the lighting guru in our house. Would you say, David?
I would agree.
Lighting guru. Also, there’s one other thing I’m going to show you. So, one of my favorite places in the world is Puerto Morelos, Mexico, and I was there this past April. And on the very last day, this big part of a tree fell. I think it was one of the palm trees. Don’t you think, David? I’d never seen something like it. And it was gorgeous. And I thought, I want to take this home and like put it on a table in my house, but it was huge, so I couldn’t. Here’s a photo of it. So, here’s what I did instead. I tore off a bunch of the twiggy parts of it to put in a vase here. So, whenever I look at it, I can think of my happy place and then I can feel happy inside. And it works.
This is called a couch or a sofa. Both words can be used interchangeably. No difference between those words. Wouldn’t you say, David?
Yeah, I agree.
And if it just had two sections, then it could be called a two-seater or a love seat. I don’t know why we do that. If it’s for two, love seat is more common. If it’s for three, sofa or couch is more common.
Anybody want to play checkers? David got this set. Where’d you get it?
It’s chess.
That’s exactly the word I meant to say. Where’d you get that?
That one is from Quito, Ecuador.
From Ecuador. Isn’t that cool? David’s a big chess player and he’s been teaching Stony. Um, one time David and I went on an 8-week road trip across the United States before we were married. And I brought my iPad and I installed a chess app and I was like, you know what? This is a game that David likes. I’m going to learn it. And we’re going to play it the whole road trip and I’m going to get really good. And I gave up after what, like five minutes?
Sounds about right.
I gave up really early. I was a quitter. Okay, the backyard. Now, you can’t call this a yard. There’s no grass. I would say slab. I would say this is our back slab. That’s a better word for it. Um, our friend who is very good in construction has a friend who’s a metal worker and he made this fence and this little landing for us. Isn’t that cool?
So yeah, you know, do I regret not putting flag stone down here? Yes, I do. Is the cement just kind of sad and ugly? Yes, it is. But the flowers brighten it a little bit. But you know, that’s city living. Whoa. You all right?
Yep.
So that’s the main room. The kitchen, I feel like, is really the heart of the house. This is our pantry. And I did do a video where I went through my pantry and just, we learned every single word of every single thing that was in there. So, you might want to check it out. Also, my oldest son made that. Isn’t it gorgeous? I love it.
This part of the kitchen is called the backsplash. We chose a yellow tile. And when we chose it, the man who installed it, what would that be called? What’s a tile installer called?
Yeah, I think that.
Tile installer?
Yeah.
Like there’s no word like mason?
Not that I know of.
Okay. Anyway, when he was putting it in, he said, “No one ever chooses yellow.” And he always wishes that they would. And I was like, “We got you. We’ll choose yellow.” We like bright, bold colors here, as you can see from our wall choice. Now, when I had this painted, people would come in and the first thing they would say is, “Oh, you can always change that color later.” And I was like, “Excuse me, this color is fabulous.” These two paintings um were purchased from an artist in the DR, the Dominican Republic. David and I love to get paintings. That one we got um in Rittenhouse Square at the art fair in Philadelphia. And I think that guy is somewhat local. He does architectural paintings. Anyway, pretty.
This little beauty, I picked up in Mexico and I met the woman who embroidered it and I thought, you know what? This is exactly how I want to die. I want to be chilling, chilling. I want to be hanging out. I want to be lounging in a field. And then as my body decays, I want succulents and grasses to grow up through me. So that’s my, that’s how I want to die. Also, this is a set from my husband’s grandmother. Right?
Right.
Grandmother, Ada. I think it’s so special to have little family heirlooms around the house.
Okay.
Do you want to see the guest bedroom? Guest bedroom. So, usually it’s very common with an ST cluster when the next word is a consonant not to say the T. First place, guest bedroom. And that’s exactly what I’m doing there. Okay, it’s a split level. Let’s head down. This is another piece of art we got at the Rittenhouse um. art fair. It’s a print and I just love it. We had a nice conversation with that artist. Do you remember, David? She was really sweet.
My grandmother, who passed away when I was in college, made this cross stitch. To love and be love is the greatest joy on earth. Look at that. Greatest joy. Another ST cluster followed by a consonant where you drop the T. Greatest joy. Anyway, that’s special. I love that.
Peloton. Yes, I do it. Yes, I love it.
Okay, this is our guest bedroom. Now, when we bought the house, this was an empty room. It was unfinished. It was cement, wood, studs, and we turned it into a guest suite. What makes it a suite? What does that word mean? That word means that it has a bathroom attached to it. It could also mean like at a hotel that it has like a sitting room attached to it. Right, David?
Correct.
When a bathroom is attached to the room itself rather than in the hallway, that’s called En suite. And so, we have a little bathroom in here. Now, remember earlier I said a half bath is a bathroom where there’s just a toilet and a sink. This is called a full bath because there’s also a shower, shower tub in this case. That’s a little bit off center or a little bit tilted. A little off-kilter. Let’s fix it. Okay.
I feel like I keep getting really close to the camera. Um, this is the wall of children’s art and other art. Actually, somebody that David and I went to college with is a potter and he made this vase and he’s kind of a big deal. Like, he’s sort of made it in the ceramics world. So, that’s kind of cool. We have several pieces of his. Um, and yeah, this is our basement guest room. You’re welcome to come and stay anytime. You’re welcome to come and stay anytime. We’ve got room for you.
David and I love to host. So, it was really important to us when we bought the house and we were renovating it to make sure we had lots of spaces so that if someone’s like, “Could we come?” We could be like, “Yes.” And then if another set of people’s like, “Can we also come?” We can say, “Yes.” Could these people also come? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. We’ve got room for everybody.
Oh, I forgot to say this piece here. I got refinished. Um, but the grandma who made this, this used to belong to her. She had a matching uh, dining room set that we had to get rid of because it was the wrong size for our kitchen. Um, but we were able to keep this. It’s called the hutch. And I love it. It’s just very precious to me because my grandma bought it when, you know, she started a family and started entertaining and hosting for holidays and all this. So, I love it. Very special piece.
Another thing that we had redone when we renovated our house was the handrails because they were really big and chunky, and we wanted something a little bit more slim and modern. Also, not every staircase had a handrail, and that’s crazy. Every staircase needs a handrail. When I busted my ankle, I really needed handrails in this house because I wasn’t walking properly for like 3 months.
Okay, now we’re leaving the kitchen and we’re going up to the living room. And this was the kitchen when we bought the house.
Don’t you think it’s nice as a living room? So, there used to be a big kitchen island here and the refrigerator was here. stove, countertop, all that. There was a little table over there, but we thought it would work better as our living room, so we switched them. Now, you might be thinking, who has the green thumb? David, who has the green thumb?
That would be me.
It’s him. It is definitely not me. So, David just does an amazing job growing all of these plants, keeping them alive, keeping them healthy.
This is another piece that my sister-in-law did. This one is collage. The one downstairs was watercolor. Uh, here’s our piano, obviously, I am making both my children take piano. Do they want to? Not necessarily. Are they going to stick with it? Yes, we are absolutely sticking with it together.
This is one of my favorite plants. Do you know what it’s called, David?
Uhuh. I don’t.
I love it. It was probably just about this size when we bought it. Wouldn’t you say?
Mhm.
It’s really flourished. I love that. Okay. Oh, here’s another piece by the potter I was telling you I went to college with. This was a collaboration he did with a glass blower. So, he made these decals, which he puts on a lot of his pieces, and they sent it back and forth to each other through the different phases of making that piece of art. Now look at this art. First class child art. I love it when my kids bring back ceramics. I just love ceramics.
All right, now we get to go up to the reading nook. Now, as we head up the stairs, note this embroidery. I absolutely adore the bright colors. Another thing, that’s another thing I got in Mexico City. I also got this in Mexico City. I’m a sucker for ceramics. Here’s another piece by the potter that I went to college with. This was a gift from my sister-in-law. We went to Italy with them and we did all the planning and as a gift they bought us this in Italy, which I love. I love the bright colors. And these two cute little guys are the creations of my oldest son.
Now, this might be one of my favorite rooms in the house. It’s so quiet and serene. Look at this. Wait, stay there. Even sometimes when I’m alone and no one else is in the house, even then sometimes I pull the pocket doors shut so I can feel really, really, really alone.
Anyway, it’s just a very cozy spot. And I bought two paintings from the same artist, to sort of pull the room together. I love the colors. I love the vibe. It’s so serene. I like to have my breakfast in here. Also, check this out. This is one of my favorite things. This pillow is this dark purple maroon color and it’s got these squigglies. And look at that. It’s so similar. I love that. I love how the pillow matches the painting.
Okay, here’s the boys bathroom. Hall bath. Now, we had a terrible time with this tile because what’s the stuff between tiles called?
Grout.
Grout. The grout kept falling down the wall. Gravity. It wasn’t sticky enough. It was It didn’t dry quickly enough. So, they actually had to put on two layers. They did one, it didn’t work. They tried it again, it didn’t work. They called a third guy in and they said, “Okay, you try.” And he did it. And so this is actually layered on top of that. That was sort of a boring story, wasn’t it? This is called penny tile. And I love penny tile. And we got this circular carpet, or I should say area rug to match the circles of the penny tile. Oh, now come here. This is cool.
This is a map and it’s not complete because I’ve been up here, but I don’t remember exactly where because I was a baby, but I’m still going to put it. Oh, that shadow’s too bad.
Anyway, this is where we like to put pins into places where we visited. Obviously, not everywhere. We’ve visited more in the US than just this, but between David and I, we’ve hit up quite a few spots. We’ve been to Southeast Asia, we’ve been to East Africa, lots of places in Europe, South America. I’ve never been. This is all David. But actually, in September, I am going to Colombia. Central America, the Dominican Republic. Been up here to Canada. Actually, we should put more of our Canada. We’ve been to like Montreal and stuff. Anyway, that’s that. And this is more children’s art. As you can see, we really love to just frame it and just bring it into the home. We’re like, you spent time on this? Yes. We’re going to honor that.
Case in point, is that not the cutest tiger you’ve ever seen? Cutest tiger. My office then is right here. Spoiler alert, it’s also my bedroom. And I have recently received some really heartfelt Mother’s Day posters that my children made for me. So, those got taped up there. But yeah, this is where the magic happens. Everything in the office is on wheels. So when I need to film, stuff I don’t need in here gets wheeled out to the hall and everything can get put in a different place so I can set up my big lights. That’s my backdrop there. You might recognize it. And I don’t have to film that frequently, so it’s not that big of a pain. I keep everything in the closet. And I do have a treadmill here. So, if I’m taking a meeting, I like to crank up my desk. It’s a sit-stand desk, and I like to crank it up, scoot it over since it’s on wheels, and I like to take my meetings while I’m walking. Otherwise, my back just starts hurting so much.
Also, this is a really pretty embroidery that I didn’t buy in Vietnam, but it was purchased in Vietnam, and then I bought it from a store that had picked it up. I thought that was so pretty.
Time for more stairs.
Are you ready for the kids’ room? Okay, my boys share a room and they each got to pick their own paint color. One boy picked blue, one boy picked purple. So, um, the color is interesting, you know, but we’re rolling with it.
Don’t really know what else to say about this room. It’s in pretty good shape considering how many toys are in here. And books. Oh, here’s a cute thing. Stony really wanted the Mona Lisa for Christmas a couple years ago. So, we got it for him. And when he opened the gift and saw that it was the Mona Lisa, he freaked out. He was so excited. And then he goes, “Is this the real one?” And we were like, “No, it’s not.”
More stairs.
This is a piece of work that I got from, piece of work. This is a piece of artwork. This is a piece that I got from Thailand. Not while I was there because I was in Thailand. I didn’t purchase it when I was there, but I purchased it later and had it shipped. David put it together for me. I love it.
We’ve gone over so many words relating to art in this video. Watercolor, embroidery, print, cross stitch, collage, ceramics to frame it, a piece of artwork. Now, let’s get back to the tour.
Okay, this is called the primary bedroom. This is where David sleeps. It’s the biggest and it has high ceilings. And I chose that color for wall. It’s called tea chest. What do you think? Do you love it? I love that color. And we, you sort of lose the lamps against it, but I don’t know. I don’t mind. Something about it. I just like this is called a chaise lounge because it’s not quite a sofa, right? It’s missing one end as far as the back and an arm rest goes. There’s lots of different styles of chaise lounges.
This is called a bay window because it curves out. It’s finally sunny out there. Okay, you guys. This bathroom is crazy. It’s definitely not our style. If we had built this house, David and I would not have chosen floor to ceiling tile. But we didn’t build the house. We bought it after what, three or four owners David?
Yeah, it’s about right.
So, you know, it’s what we got. We’re rolling with it. Again, David’s green thumb bringing all the beauty into the bathroom. I just used the phrase, “We’re rolling with it.” Again, I first said it talking about the interesting paint colors that my children chose for their room.
But we’re rolling with it.
And now I’m using it to describe all of the tile in this bathroom.
We’re rolling with it.
Neither of these are styles we would have chosen, but we’re living with it. were rolling with it.
When I saw this house listed and I saw the huge tub, I was like, at the time I had a 3-year-old and a 1 and half year-old, and I thought, what a beautiful place to give my babies their baths. And it is. They love it. And then there’s a shower, too.
I see your water pick up there. Have you been using that?
Every day?
Is that a lie?
Yeah.
I thought.
Anyway, people might really want to see the bathroom, the shower. Maybe you should come show them.
Yes. Thank you so much. Also, this is sort of an odd thing. Pendant light in a bathroom. Not that normal, but David really wanted it and I think, you know, he crushed it.
Oops. There.
It was a great idea. I love it. We leave it on. Oh, so nice, right?
Love it.
Love it. Should we show them the roof, David?
Sure.
Why not? Oh, wait. I wanted to show them my closet.
Alright.
I know. It’s a mess. It’s not that interesting. And I do have an empty box in here. Why the empty box? Because we’re traveling in a few weeks, and I have some nieces that might want some of my hand-me-down clothes. So, I have this box because I need to cull my closet. I need to go through and pick things I don’t want anymore. Like, I know I don’t want these two sweaters. And I’m going to pack them up in the box and I’m going to see if any of my nieces want them. If not, you know, we’ll take them to a clothing donation place, but I’ve already started to pull some here that I’m going to cull for them. So, that’s a project I need to do before vacation.
Cull. Teach them to cull. Here’s the thermostat. Are you comfortable with the temperature, David?
I think it’s good.
I think I’m good, too.
David and I are thinking of getting a hanging plant there that will then just fall down over time. Won’t that be gorgeous? I love that idea. Oh, babe, come get here. Looking. Actually, no. Let’s go up one more little bit of stairs. And then from the top here, you can look down. It’s kind of crazy the way the stairway just keeps wrapping around itself. Don’t drop the camera.
One thing that’s a real big activity when kids come to our house is they get stuffed animals and they bring them up here and they throw them down and they try to get them to go all the way down to the basement because sometimes they’ll like bounce around and shoot off and land on a floor before it gets to the basement and that’s not what you want. You want it to get all the way to the basement. Poor stuffies.
Do you want to take off your socks?
No, that’s okay.
Okay. So, because it’s a split level, that means our roof deck is also split level. And this is has been where we’ve had kids stuff like we had a little house, we had a little swimming pool, but they’ve just outgrown that. So, we haven’t quite figured out what exactly we’re going to do with this part of the roof yet. But for now, I have been enjoying coming up from time to time and reading a book, sipping some tea, and just getting away from it all.
Now, here we’ve got a spiral staircase, so be careful. It can be tricky.
Always hold on to the handrail.
And here’s the adult part of the roof. Now, we’ve had some issues with squirrels, maybe raccoons, maybe possums. We’re not sure. But all of our cushions got eaten and shredded. And so, we’re in the process of figuring out what to do here. They even started eating the plastic rattan. So, we’re probably going to have to switch things up up here. But this is where we come hang out in the evenings with friends sometimes in the summer. You can see the taller buildings there of center city.
We used to be able to see the elevated subway, but too many buildings have been built between us and the subway, so we can’t see it anymore. That’s kind of sad. I kind of loved being up here and seeing it go by. It just felt like I was so in the heart of everything. But it’s still a lovely place to spend some time. I think that concludes the house tour. David, is there anything I missed or forgot?
I don’t think so.
You think it was thorough?
Yep.
I mean, I even opened up my closet.
That’s true.
Guys, that’s it. Thank you so much for watching. And don’t forget to go to rachelsenglish.com/free to check out my free course, The Top Three Ways to Master the American Accent. And please do subscribe with notifications on. That’s it. And thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.
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